Succumbing
by winteredspark
Summary: /Ironic, Mommy Forbes asking parenting advice from an ex-sociopathic vampire. What is Mystic Falls coming to?/ He wants to awaken the blood-thirsty demon she's buried. She wishes to reconcile the burning pieces of his life. Eternity shouldn't be lonely.


| S m |

|u b|

|c i|

|c n|

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_s u c c u m b i n g_

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**a klaus/caroline story**

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**A/n: **Gahh, how could I not? Lol. I thought last night's episode was pretty good. Much character development and all that. But I was especially drawn in by Caroline's scene and it made me want to expand...so I hope that you all enjoy this. It will be several parts, and hopefully it won't be boring. You'll get to see a different side of both characters, definitely. Reviews are welcome :D

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Klaus drags himself, skin dripping with blood and cuts flaring and aching, to a little hitch in the corner of the shadowed house. This little nook in the edge of the house is useful for hiding away and taking a moment to listen when one needs it the most, he thinks.

A place to get away. At least he knows what to expect here.

His breath - ragged with the memories of choking tears - slowly comes to a stop as he listens for the voice of one person. _Please let her be here_, he pleads before he can banish the loathing little thought.

"I've tried that, Damon," an older voice says. "She doesn't want to be reached."

Scooting himself under the window, Klaus peeks just over the edge of the ledge and watches Sheriff Forbes pace back and forth in the hallway, bare feet shimmering lightly in the light from the kitchen. She's discarded her shoes and socks by the front door, probably so she won't wake her grieving child. The uniform she seems to wear constantly is draped across the fold-up brown chair by the door; she's had time to change into a rumbled pink blouse and jeans. If she wasn't furiously wiping the tears from her cheeks every ten seconds, she might actually look ten years younger. _Ah, frail humanity_, he thinks to himself, remembering the days when he could call himself normal.

"I just don't know what to do," Sheriff Forbes whimpers into the phone, covering her mouth lightly with her free hand. "She's been in there crying for days. What do you suggest?"

Ironic, Mommy Forbes asking parenting advice from an ex-sociopathic vampire. What is Mystic Falls coming to?

Creeping forward - ignoring the gut-wrenching pain enveloping his every muscle - Klaus emerges next to the next window of the house, one swaddled in dark drapes, accentuated by the smothering darkness within. He takes a second to listen and then hears it, the little tight breathes and sobs that cannot be contained by any force in this world.

"There she is," he murmers, just loud enough that her sensitive ears can pick it out.

Shifting noises echo from inside of her room, followed by the crumpling of bedsheets and a noticable male cough.

"What are you doing here, Klaus?" Tyler asks suspicously, leaning halfway out the window and eyeing him with bottomless eyes. Caroline's pale arms wrap around her boyfriend's built waist and she mumbles something to him, most likely consoling his anger. Her eyes drip with sadness and tears tangle in her black lashes; Klaus remembers the feeling of looking into his mother's eyes as he disposed of her so long ago and knows that for once he understands what the blonde bobble-head must be going through.

"Someone let her pet out of the dog-house," Klaus comments conversationally, lifting an eyebrow mockingly towards the dark-haired hybrid.

Tyler snarls. "I'm no one's servant."

Caroline's arms tighten around Tyler and normally she'd be spitting off what an asshole Klaus is, but all he notices is the way her crystalline eyes seem to gaze off into nothing and her lips sag hopelessly.

"Is that so," Klaus purrs, leaning on the window-sill from the other side. "Would we like to test that? You know what happened last time."

Tyler's eyes flash to meet Caroline's and they silently share the memory of the night he bit her under Klaus' orders. The former's lips tighten first in a quiet apology and then in anger as he turns to glare at Klaus. "What do you want?" he growls.

Klaus focuses on the poor, hopeful child and dilates his pupils, ordering, "Go home. Remember only that Caroline wants you to leave her alone from now on."

Caroline only has time to gasp before the exchange is complete. Tyler's hands clamp on his master's shoulders and he shudders for a second as his memory is stolen from him. He whimpers, then swings his leg over the edge of the window-sill. Stilling, his eyes meet the girl who means more than anything to him and he whispers, "Please, I know you hate me and I know you want nothing to do with me. But please, think about all that we've been through. Don't throw me away like this."

"Tyler, I -" Caroline begins, indecision written all over her face. There is a whoosh of wind and Tyler is gone, the only trace of his presence left the little grooves in the sill he made. "What the hell is wrong with you?" Her voice trembles as she speaks.

Klaus leans against the edge of the house, pressing his fingers against the invisible barrier stopping him from charging into the house. Just last week Sheriff Forbes had signed the house over to her daughter, thereby blocking any supernatural beings from entering unless permitted.

"I'm not stupid, love," he says, glancing up at her. "You're using the Lockwood boy because he's all you think to possibly trust anymore. You're _using_ him."

"No, I'm not," Caroline snaps, raking her hands through her hair and nearly piercing her skin with ravaged pink nails. "I love him, okay? I love him and I can't just let him go, even after all of this." Green eyes flash venemously at him, tinging with the red she's so good at hiding now.

"But you don't trust him anymore," Klaus pushes, gazing intently up at her and watching the way she holds herself together despite how inside she's crumbling. "You don't trust anyone, do you, beautiful?" He watches the gorgeous way in which she shakes. "Not Elena, not Bonnie, not Damon, not Tyler, not even your own mother. Not even Stefan."

Caroline jerks up to look at him when he says the last bit.

"You thought I didn't notice," Klaus assumes, chuckling to himself. "You've always been all for lost causes, Caroline."

"Stefan is my _friend_," she insists, her body posture shifting guiltily. "Besides, if anyone's a lost cause, it's me."

Klaus raises his eyebrows slightly, but lets it go. "Your mother is looking particularly delectable tonight."

Her face darkens, the veins slipping under her smooth skin. "Fuck off," she hisses, dropping the blinds in front of his face. "I'm not letting you in."

"You realize that I can just compel your mother to let me in, right?" Klaus answers saucily. When there is nothing but silence from the bedroom, he sighs and heads around the side of the house until he can climb the steps onto the porch. From the front, the house looks completely inconspicuous and both occupants have mastered the art of deflecting questions. They play the role of innocent very well.

Knocking six times, Klaus crosses his left foot over the right and waits.

"Hello, I'm afraid now isn't -" Sheriff Forbes cuts off as she takes in the sight of the imposing hybrid, the way that his body is covered in scars despite how fast he heals and how his shirt and pants are ripped in odd and inappropriate places. "Get off my property before -"

"Before what?" Klaus asks, amused. He braces himself against the doorway with his left arm to lift some of the pain. "Before you call the police? I'll have your heart ripped out before you dial the second nine. Or perhaps I could just compel you."

"I've been drinking vervain," the sheriff answers. "You can't do anything to me or my daughter. And one of these days, I'll see to it that someone drives a stake through your heart." Her lips wobble but those eyes burn fire, promising the worst of deaths to him.

He laughs and she takes a step back. "But see, Elizabeth Forbes," Klaus croons darkly, "I'm a very special kind of vampire. Your petty little vervain trick will do nothing to me. So, let's see, what should we have you do?" His eyes widen, dilate, trapping her under his compulsion. She gets a dazed look about her. "Should we have you step outside so I can kill you, or have you drive over to the gourge and throw yourself into the pits? I am feeling rather hungry." He holds out a hand. "Why don't you join me out here, Elizabeth?"

"Stop." Caroline steps forward, out of the shadows, tears staining her face. "What do you want?" She seems a bit alarmed to find him in such a bloodied condition, but makes no comment about it.

Klaus looks at her for a long second, memorizing a tear slips from the corner of her eye and trails down her cheek like a dying star. She's the closest thing he's ever encountered to himself, to the feelings that he's buried away for so long because they make him _weak_. It makes him curious, how she lives like this without making a sound of protest, almost like she enjoys it. She's exquisite and so very different, unlike the rest of them who's very goal is to dispose of his rotting corpse.

"Why don't you join me outside?" he suggests, gesturing towards the porch.

Caroline arches an eyebrow, keeping up with his game remarkably well. "And if I'd rather not? I don't know if you've heard, but I'm a recently proclaimed hermit." Something in her eyes breaks at that last bit; a memory of her father's death, most likely.

Klaus growls in annoyance. "Then I will rip your limbs off one by one until you're a writhing mass of blood and tears and only then will I grant you the mercy of death." His sharp teeth glint, as if to remind her just what he is, and he waits for her to cave.

"That's it?" Caroline asks, pursing her lips. "Curious. I would have thought you'd improved on your threats at least a little bit. They're getting old."

A little smile drifts onto his face without his permission, something along the lines of pride. She's a real mystery, isn't she now? One second she's talking your ear off, in the next second she's crying her eyes out and then she's acting all saucy and in charge of life's roots. He can't make sense of it. Unfortunately, she's using her pretty little talents on the wrong person.

"I admire your spunk," Klaus says, smile widening as he looks to the girl's mother. "But you still have one weakness, now don't you?"

Caroline hesitates, then mumbles, "Promise that you won't hurt my mother or anyone I care about and I will go with you." She takes a wary step towards the doorway, stopping just inside the boundaries.

"Why is it that the inhabitants of this _one_ town are so concerned with honor and promises?" Klaus sneers, groaning at the pettiness of it all.

"We've learned to adapt," Caroline says, patting her mother's shoulder and inhaling in a shaky manner. "Sometimes you look back just as you're about to make a decision and wonder if anything will ever be the same," she muses, combing through her hair with pink-chipped nails. "You get the feeling that you'll eventually lose everything, so why try?" Her eyes give him a one-over, nearly curious.

"Why try?" Klaus repeats, wrapping his arm around hers and leading her forward.

"Because it's the part of your humanity fighting to be heard," Caroline whispers, looking at him in such a way that he nearly shivers. She tears up. "My father was right when he said that. You never realize just how precious humanity is until it's gone."

"You know very well that one never truly loses their humanity," Klaus answers, more openly than he normally would. Vampire Barbie - as Damon so affectionately calls her - has this effect on him that makes him want to spill every thought out his mouth. "I haven't."

Her smile turns plastic then. "You have yet to prove that."

"And you doubt I ever will," Klaus fills in for her.

Caroline chokes on air as she looks at him and he realizes just how empty she really is. The need to do something to help is disturbingly present and he tells himself that she's the enemy, she's part of the reason he's fighting in the first place. But no, not anymore. Now she's just caught between the jaws of a merciless soul that is her own and the shreds of her humanity she's desperate to keep. Caroline Forbes is fighting no one but herself.

"He's a fucking genius," she murmers, sliding into the passenger seat of his car.

Klaus laughs - and startles himself with how real the sound is.

"Where are we going?" she asks when he closes the driver's seat door behind him.

Buckling his seat-belt and releasing the parking break, Klaus looks at the blonde beauty. His fingers go to cup her cheek and she slaps them away.

"I have a proposition for you," he says instead of answering her question. "But first, let's get out of this one-pony town."

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_to be continued_

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